Franz Edelman Award - 2025 Application Process

Submit a PDF document containing 3 items:

• a cover page with the title, authors' names, affiliations and contact information,
• a 600 character abstract of the achievement, and
• a summary, (maximum of 1,500 words & use 12-point font text and normal margins) that describes what was accomplished, in just enough detail to let the committee judge the appropriateness of the work for the competition.

This Summary of Achievement is due by October 1, 2024 (noon eastern).

Entrants will be expected to report on a completed, practical application using operations research, management science, and/or advanced analytics and must describe results that had significant, verifiable, and preferably quantifiable impact on the performance of the client organization. The criteria used in judging the entries include the following:

1. Implementation: Is the work implemented and currently in use?
2. Impact/Value: What are the major quantified (e.g., dollars saved, revenue increased, carbon footprint reduction, lives saved) and non-quantified (e.g., process streamlined, customer satisfaction improved) realized benefits of the work? How important was the work to the client? Is senior management supportive of the work?
3. Technical Solution & Innovation: What is the nature of the modeling and analytical content of the work?  What is the level of innovation in both analytical methods and implementation? How appropriate is the solution to the problem addressed?
4. Difficulty: What political, technical, and managerial challenges had to be overcome in completing the project?
5. Transportability: Is this work portable and applicable to other organizations or industries?

Meeting criteria 1 and 2 above is essential; the work must have been implemented and resulted in significant benefit. Testimonies from senior management constitute an influential source of information to confirm impact. Criteria 3 to 5 are important, but finalists need not be strong in all categories. The award is given for implemented work, not for a submitted paper or for the presentation describing the work. 

Semi-finalists will be selected based on the Summary of Achievement document, and will go through a rigorous verification phase consisting of interviews where entrants will be expected to provide details on their work, including a description of the analytic techniques used, client and other high level endorsements, and benefit calculations methodology. Entrants should get any required internal legal and managerial clearances in advance, as necessary, to share this information with the Edelman committee. While information disclosed as part of the application and verification processes will be considered confidential to the committee, if the entry is chosen as a finalist, it is expected that full disclosure of this information, including financial benefits and a description of the analytic techniques, will be permitted via publication of a final paper in the INFORMS Journal of Applied Analytics (formerly Interfaces) and during the final presentations.

Finalists work will be published in a future issue of INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics.

Any work that has been done in recent years is eligible unless it has already been described by a Franz Edelman Award finalist. Previous publication of the work does not disqualify it. 

The purpose of the competition is to bring forward, recognize, and reward outstanding worldwide examples of operations research, management science, and advanced analytics in practice. The prize is awarded for implemented work, not for a submitted paper or for the presentation describing the work. The client organization that used the winning work receives a prize citation; the authors of the winning work receive a cash award.

See more information on what is expected from competition applicants.  

2025 & 2026 Committee Chair:

Irv Lustig, CAP, PhD
Princeton Consultants